Ezekiel 36:35
◄  Ezekiel 36:35  ►
New International Version (©2011)
They will say, "This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited."

New Living Translation (©2007)
And when I bring you back, people will say, 'This former wasteland is now like the Garden of Eden! The abandoned and ruined cities now have strong walls and are filled with people!'

English Standard Version (©2001)
And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
"They will say, 'This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.'

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
Then they will say, 'This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden. The cities that were once ruined, desolate, and destroyed are now fortified and inhabited.'

International Standard Version (©2012)
They will say, "This wasteland has become like the garden of Eden, and what used to be desolate ruins are now fortified and inhabited."

NET Bible (©2006)
They will say, "This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; the ruined, desolate, and destroyed cities are now fortified and inhabited."

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
People will say, "This wasteland has become like the garden of Eden. The cities were destroyed. They were empty and ruined, but now they are fortified and have people living in them."

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
And they shall say, This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities have become fortified, and are inhabited.

American King James Version
And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.

American Standard Version
And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.

Douay-Rheims Bible
They shall say: This land that was untilled is become as a garden of pleasure: and the cities that were abandoned, and desolate, and destroyed, are peopled and fenced.

Darby Bible Translation
And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.

English Revised Version
And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are fenced and inhabited.

Webster's Bible Translation
And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fortified, and are inhabited.

World English Bible
They shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.

Young's Literal Translation
And they have said: This land, that was desolated, Hath been as the garden of Eden, And the cities -- the wasted, And the desolated, and the broken down, Fenced places have remained.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

36:25-38 Water is an emblem of the cleansing our polluted souls from sin. But no water can do more than take away the filth of the flesh. Water seems in general the sacramental sign of the sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost; yet this is always connected with the atoning blood of Christ. When the latter is applied by faith to the conscience, to cleanse it from evil works, the former is always applied to the powers of the soul, to purify it from the pollution of sin. All that have an interest in the new covenant, have a new heart and a new spirit, in order to their walking in newness of life. God would give a heart of flesh, a soft and tender heart, complying with his holy will. Renewing grace works as great a change in the soul, as the turning a dead stone into living flesh. God will put his Spirit within, as a Teacher, Guide, and Sanctifier. The promise of God's grace to fit us for our duty, should quicken our constant care and endeavour to do our duty. These are promises to be pleaded by, and will be fulfilled to, all true believers in every age.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 35. - This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden. (For the reverse picture, see Joel 2:3.) The thought of the first Paradise (Genesis 2:8), in the historicity of which clearly Ezekiel believed, was one on which his mind often dwelt (Ezekiel 28:13; Ezekiel 31:9) as an ideal of earthly beauty and fertility which should recur in the closing age of the world - a hope which appears to have been shared by Isaiah (Isaiah 51:3), and taken up by John (Revelation 2:7; Revelation 22:1-3). In the day when that hope should be realized for Israel, the waste, desolate, and ruined cities, on which the passers-by who visited Palestine gazed, should be fenced and inhabited; literally, inhabited as fortresses. The three predicates, "waste," "desolate," and" ruined," have been distinguished as signifying "stripped of its inhabitants," "untilled in its lands," and "broken down in its buildings;" in contrast with which, in the golden era of the future, the towns should be inhabited, the fields tilled, and the ruined fortresses built.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they shall say,.... Either the neighbouring nations that lived round about the land of Israel, Ezekiel 36:36, or rather the travellers, as before, who having as they passed by observed what it had been, and now see what it is; these shall say to one another:

this land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; for delight and fruitfulness: this may well be applied to the flourishing and fruitful state of the church of God, consisting of converted Jews, in the latter day:

and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited; which, as it will be true of cities in a literal sense, so of the churches of Christ in Judea in a spiritual sense; which will be rebuilt by the grace of God, fenced and fortified by his almighty power, and inhabited by true believers.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

35. they shall say—The heathen, who once made Israel's desolation a ground of reproach against the name of Jehovah Himself (Eze 36:20, 21); but now He so vindicates its sanctity (Eze 36:22, 23) that these same heathen are constrained to acknowledge Israel's more than renewed blessedness to be God's own work, and a ground for glorifying His name (Eze 36:36).

Eden—as Tyre (the type of the world powers in general: so Assyria, a cedar "in the garden of God, Eden," Eze 31:8, 9), in original advantages, had been compared to "Eden, the garden of God" (Eze 28:13), from which she had fallen irrecoverably; so Israel, once desolate, is to be as "the garden of Eden" (Isa 51:3), and is to be so unchangeably.

Ezekiel 36:35 Parallel Commentaries

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A New Heart and Spirit
…34And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. 35And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. 36Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it. …

Isaiah 51:3 The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.
Ezekiel 28:13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared.
Ezekiel 31:9 I made it beautiful with abundant branches, the envy of all the trees of Eden in the garden of God.
Ezekiel 36:34 The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it.
Joel 2:3 Before them fire devours, behind them a flame blazes. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them, a desert waste-- nothing escapes them.